Materials Count The Case for Material Flows Analysis (2004) / Chapter Skim
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4 Material Flows Accounting: Uses and Usefulness
4 Material Flows Accounting: Uses and Usefulness
Pages 39-58
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From page 39... ...
Material flows analyses at the plant, corporate, and national levels are also being done by private organizations. However, primarily because formal material flows accounts are not established in the United States, the value of material flows accounting is not widely recognized.
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From page 40... ...
This chapter therefore takes a more structured look at typical uses of material flows accounting and analysis, with a focus on the value of formal accounts. What emerges is a need, not for expansive new data collection programs, but for the development of a carefully structured material flows accounting framework that can accept and integrate existing and future data streams.
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From page 41... ...
Vulcan Materials Company Vulcan Materials Company is an example of a private company that has developed and maintains an in-house material flows database at both regional and national levels (D. Meyer, Vulcan Materials Company, personal communication, 2002~.
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From page 42... ...
The company's database contains a large amount of information, including the number of quarries and companies and their production levels. By considering the production in a geographical area relative to market demand, Vulcan Materials Company can determine where there are deficits, balances, or surpluses in production (D.
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From page 43... ...
Copyright permission granted by Vulcan Materials Company.
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From page 44... ...
Both organizations have specific insights regarding the value of material flows accounting, as well as concerns about its implementation. The Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries believes that by tracking the types and quantities of materials that end up in landfills, it may be possible to use these materials at a later date, thereby providing major public benefits such as reducing landfill disposal and offsetting demand for virgin materials (T.
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From page 45... ...
It is notable that the Japanese, in framing their approach to material flows accounting, decided that recycling would be tracked. In contrast, the European Union has decided not to track recycling data in a major way; rather, it has proposed the use of subaccounts as data become available.
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From page 47... ...
Materials sent for disposal in landfills may or may not be recycled in the future and may or may not represent a permanent loss from the materials system; thus, such material flows should not necessarily be considered releases to the environment, but rather in many cases an augmentation of stocks of materials. This last point relates to the role of recycling in material flows accounting.
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From page 48... ...
Focusing on national and multinational levels, the World Resources Institute's overarching conclusion is that targeted policies will be needed to accelerate the trend toward dematerialization and to encourage the substitution of benign materials for those that are environmentally harmful. The European Union member states have collaborated recently to begin standardizing the principles and practice of material flows accounting.
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From page 49... ...
U.S. National Accounting Although not formally defined based on a national or international standard system, there are several examples of national material flows accounting and analysis documents generated by the U.S.
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From page 50... ...
A national material flows accounting system, and the resulting flows accounts, would give national security strategists a much better picture of the sources and distribution routes of materials critical to the U.S. economy.
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From page 51... ...
(Sidebar 2.1~. Although this information is gathered at the plant scale, the results can be used for statewide policy making, and the program stands as an
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From page 54... ...
Municipal Accounting Applications An overview of selected public sector activities, from the municipal to the national levels, further develops the case for creation of a systematic material flows accounting framework. Whether the physical asset is a bridge, a street, or a building, there are enormous material flows implications in the life cycle of municipal assets.
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From page 55... ...
SUMMARY AND FINDINGS The primary purpose of a material flows accounting system is to create, develop, and maintain a formally structured, common database system that integrates, consistently, existing material flows data from government, business, and public sources such that they may be used, through analyses and linkages with other databases, to provide insights on material flows in physical and/or economic systems and permit more holistic, robust public policy decisions based on the integration of economic, public health, and environmental considerations. The activity of informing public policy generally involves the creation of various types of indicators of the intensity of material flows on the input and output side related to the impact on the environment, but could also include their relationships to economic, quality-of-life, and public health measures.
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From page 56... ...
The European Union has converged on a unionwide standard for a material flows accounting system, that represents the most visible, formal standard at this time. The committee notes, from the examples cited, that such material flows databases could be used to accomplish the following: · Generate periodic reports on consumption rates of natural resources and their efficiency of use to improve the management of these resources.
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From page 57... ...
As noted in Chapter 2, proper material flows accounting, like financial accounting, requires the use of a standardized structure and specified principles. Therefore, the committee recommends that a structured material flows accounting framework that can accept and integrate existing and future data be established.
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From page 58... ...
Total domestic output is defined as the aggregate measure of domestic processed output (material outflows from the economy) plus domestic hidden flows (those that do not enter the economy)
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